Saud bin Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman bin Faisal bin
Turki bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Saud was born in
Kuwait on January 12, 1902, the second son of Ibn Saud.
With his half-brother Faisal, he
participated in his father's conquest of Saudi Arabia in
the 1920's. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was proclaimed on
September 23, 1932, and Saud was sworn in as Crown Prince
on May 11, 1933.

As heir to the throne and his father's agent, Saud
traveled widely and visited such countries as Great Britain, India and Egypt. He
commanded the army in Asir in 1934, led his army into Yemen during the
Saudi-Yemeni conflict of the mid-1930s, and became
commander-in-chief of the armed forces in 1939.

Crown Prince Saud became King Saud upon the death of
his father, on November 9, 1953; Faisal became Crown
Prince and Saud's chief advisor on financial and foreign
affairs.

Domestic Affairs

Soon after assuming the throne, King Saud established
the Council of Ministers, which included ministries of
Health, Education, and Commerce. Other domestic events
during his reign included: establishment of religious
institutes to teach the provisions and fundamentals of
Islam; the development and arming of a more efficient
army; establishment of Saudi Arabia's first two
institutions of higher learning, King Saud University
(now Riyadh University) and the King Abdul Aziz Military
Academy; and the abolishment of slavery in 1962. The
Saudi oil industry also developed rapidly during his
reign, which in turn provided a dramatic increase in the
nation's gross national product.

Foreign Affairs

Although Saud initially supported the government of
Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser, he went against Nasser when in 1956 he
entered into close relations with Jordan and Iraq, both of which had
until then been long-time enemies of Saudi Arabia. He
opposed the union of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab
Republic in 1958, and was a bitter opponent of
Nasser's pan-Arabism and reform programs. In September
1962, after pro-Nasser revolutionaries overthrew the
Yemeni imam and declared Yemen to be a republic, Saud
joined with King
Hussein of Jordan and dispatched aid to the Yemeni
royalist troops. In 1963, Saudi Arabia withdrew its
troops from Kuwait, ending its conflict with Iraq over
that region.

Fall from Power

King Saud's reign was marked by major financial
crises, due to the plundering of state coffers for King
Saud's personal luxury. Saudi Arabia was raking in
millions of dollars from its oil reserves, but the
country as a whole saw very little of that money spent on
infrastructure. It did, however, see that money being
spent on lavish palaces, expensive cars, and the king's
very extensive household, which included dozens of
children. This blatant disregard for the Saudi people as
a whole led to widespread social turmoil, which in turn
led to political turmoil.

In 1963, while King Saud was out of the country for
medical treatment, he was removed from the throne by his
family, which appointed Faisal as king on November 2,
1964.

Saud spent the rest of his life in fairly luxurious
exile, first in Geneva, Switzerland, and then in Athens,
Greece. He died in Athens on February 23, 1969.